China Orders Internet Comments Linked To Real Identities (engadget.com)
A (truly) anonymous Slashdot reader quotes Engadget:
China isn't slowing down in its bid to silence online political opposition. As of October 1st, the country will require that tech firms hold on to records of the real identities of everyone posting comments on internet message boards. This is to discourage "false rumors, filthy language and illegal messages," according to the government. Of course, it's that last part that Chinese officials are really interested in -- they know you're less likely to challenge the political order if investigators can easily track you down.
The timing of this identity requirement, the VPN restriction and other crackdowns (such as an investigation into internet giants for allowing material that "harms the social order") isn't coincidental. China's ruling party has its next national congress later in 2017, and it has a habit of ramping up censorship around these gatherings to discourage criticism of party policies.
The timing of this identity requirement, the VPN restriction and other crackdowns (such as an investigation into internet giants for allowing material that "harms the social order") isn't coincidental. China's ruling party has its next national congress later in 2017, and it has a habit of ramping up censorship around these gatherings to discourage criticism of party policies.
Fuck China.
As long as the circumvention efforts are going well, who cares what the government does, or tries to do?
...of those on /. who want everyone to be logged on before they are allowed to comment. Talk about stifling free speech.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
You're required to use your real name? You mean like Facebook? Hmm...seems like China aren't the assholes here, they're just doing what they always do: copy the successful.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The ability to silence their opposition and install fear in the population.
Actually they do that quite well now thanks to the willing hatchet people in the media.
China's ruling party has its next national congress later in 2017, and it has a habit of ramping up censorship around these gatherings to discourage criticism of party policies.
No feedback and participation leads to unhappy people and political instability. But maybe the Chinese government knows this and is just trying to annoy the population to get more use out of the national re-education facilities and employ the police and the army?
So I guess it can't all be bad. Right?
Uncrackable quantum encryption, no VPN, no dissent on message boards, a billion+ citizens to use as de facto slave labour... this is a recipe for disaster.
captcha: peasant
any day now. Yup. Any day now. Right after we call out Saudi Arabia for it's civil rights abuses and treatment of women. In other news, the new iPhone 8 looks pretty sweet.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Not sure why this would be coined the great firewall. All the great wall ever needed to do was keep people out. The CPC obviously wants to virtually pick off all its jesters. Fucking stupid considering they're cutting off their own noses to spite their face.
On-line censorship in the U.S. is going in a similar direction though the methods being used are a bit different.
In the U.S.:
* Most visit a relatively limited number of sites controlled by large corporations that collect and aggregate data. One's identity is far from private.
* Many read much of the news from social media sites, in particular, Facebook. News aggregators, in particular, Google News tend to show news from a relatively few sources, such as NY Times, Washington Post, and CNN. Bias is very evident.
* DNS (suspending / deleting one's domain name) is the ultimate way to, in effect, censor information off the internet. Sure, it's technically still hosted somewhere, but if it's not easily accessible to the public at-large, it might as well not be.
It's very disconcerting how many people assume censorship only concerns the government. Companies by and large have significant control over people's lives. In some aspects of life, such as the internet, more than the government does. Many make the argument that companies are private and can do whatever they want in regards to censorship. However, when a company controls much of a critical infrastructure, that argument, in my view, is a weak one.
DNS is a critical part of the internet. Some portions of it can't function without it. Try sending an email to an IP address. Sure it might get through, but will likely be dropped. Worse, if the IP is shared and/or dynamic, follow-up replies may bounce. So when a domain registrar, such as GoDaddy, suspends / deletes a domain, they've effectively censored the content associated with it.
Corporate entities are government constructs. More to the point, companies can't just do whatever they want. Public accommodation comes to mind. In regards to the internet, domain registrars, ISPs, etc are essentially utilities. Utilities are very restricted in how they operate, including providing service to those in their territory; not able to arbitrarily shutoff service.
In short, the U.S., while the methods are different, is going down the same path as China in regards to censorship.
Hopefully, it's headed off at the pass before much of the internet becomes censored. Encryption, etc is of limited effectiveness when the end-points aren't fully secured. The solution, sad to say, is government regulation; internet neutrality requiring domain registrars, co-location facilities, ISPs, and email providers, to name a few, to operate as utilities not as dictators who block / delete whatever they don't like.
We make the Chinese government possible. American companies are eager for profits in China. We are eager for profits from American companies. Humanity loses.
You know it is a whole lot more likely that we get to where the chinese, and many other countries, are through the back door, of lawsuits, liability judgements and insurance companies. Western societies are often more constrained by such than by actual law and government regulation.
Everyone replying to this comment is required to post anonymously, by order of the confederation of anonymous cowards of slashdot, on penalty of severe karma hit if you violate this order!
China is preparing to go to war. Limiting communication is critical since people can't be allowed to assemble. Easier to phase it in than declare martial law.
Máo shì ygè biàntài!
Actually, China is a right-winger dream: uber-capitalist, lax regulations, no meaningful minimum wage, no environmental protection. Add to that an authoritarian government that doesn't tolerate anything non-traditional (LGBTs, foreign religions, porn) and you get the wet dreams of right-wingers.
Funny, that sounds like a perfect recipe for short-sighted destruction. Well, I guess it's not funny.
Trump wants to know who is talking about him!
With Identities being required on China tech firms. Now all we need is a website breach on those tech firms to get BEELLIONS of FREE real identities for SELL!
There's a reason why some data are better not kept.
Except most right-wingers espouse a minimalist Federal government, are pro-firearms-rights, anti-abortionists, religious, and generally favor a strict constructionist interpretation of the US Constitution, with all those pesky individual rights enumerated. Yeah, definitely a right-winger's paradise there.
Authoritarian governments don't really favor the left OR right. They just favor themselves.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Negative. Huge swathes of the Chinese economy are still owned directly by the government. Huge numbers of regulations encumber the Chinese people. There absolutely is a minimum wage, and if you get paid any less there are fines for employers. Tons of factories are shut down right now in environmental raids. It's disrupting supply chains all over China at the moment, haven't you heard about it? Have you been watching fake news? Why don't you ask what people really want, and what China is really like, instead of inventing a bunch of stuff in your head? +4 Insightful my ass, more like -1 Inaccurate.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Have you been in China? It is so capitalist that Ayn Rand would hide under her bed after seeing it. And state companies are nigh indistinguishable from US-style monopolies. Minimum wage is not meaningful, it's not survivable and even that is violated left and right. Tons of factories are STILL open as you can see by looking at the air in Beijing, more often than not regulations are used to extort (small) bribes. Actually, pretty much all regulations are as lax as you want them to be for a small sum.
As an example, my friend lives near a 24-hour construction site. The work is supposed to stop at 10pm but it continues throughout the night, with the associated noise.
To its credit, Chinese government is trying to stop the wild unbridled free market and at least force people to obey some laws. Turns out that living inside a pure capitalism is hell.
I can't see how this will do anything outside of censor China's own great firewall.
Most right-wingers do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT advocate for minimalist government. They're perfectly fine with government that hangs gays and kicks minorities and enforces strict "morality". And don't get me started on "individual rights", they don't care about anything but gun-fondling. Yep, China would be their perfect country.
... the more will slip through your fingers
oppressive people are evil
Totalitarian governments try to take the place religion once had. Hebrews 4:13 "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight...". Replace God with 'the party' and you're there. But instead of a fictious figure it's an actual goverment that spies on you, judges and punishes you.
sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
Every country deserves the government it has
There are calls by some bureaucrats for similar measures in the EU to do the same thing. It's not as crazy as some people think.
FTFY.
Because there are some bureaucrats who are calling for banning backdoors as well:
https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/19/eu-proposes-banning-encryption-backdoors/
So there's a bit more back and forth in a more democratic culture.
Most right-wingers do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT advocate for minimalist government.
I hope you realize that to accurately portray most political beliefs / movements you need more than two axis:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_compass
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum#Other_proposed_dimensions
Maybe, but what matters is how you wear it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Translation: I upped my DDoS resilience and am humbly requesting a stress test.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm sure you taste good.
Then why do the lefties love it so much?
Turdeau in particular seems to orgasm every time he thinks about China.
The hilarious part is that you complain about the treatment of GBLTs, religions and porn, which are policies retained from their Communist era (as, for that matter, is their complete disregard for worker safety and environmental damage). Communists have no time for GBLTs and religions, and regard environmentalism and porn as a threat to productivity.
But, hey, SJWs always project.
The Nazis based their anti-Jewish laws on the anti-black laws from the Democrat south. Except the Nazis decided those laws went too far, and toned them down for Nazi Germany.
Democrats were literally considered TOO RACIST by the Nazis.
That's also b'cos the US has never had any global ambitions: everything anyone wants - from the Grand Canyon to Death Valley to the Colorado Rockies to the Alaskan Slopes to the Malibu Beaches to the Florida Everglades to the Appalachian Mountains - they're all contained within the US. And then there's Vegas, if one wants any of the exotic wonders, such as the Eiffel. It's a part of the reason that the US was never a colonial power (except for a few islands that they seized after the Spanish-American War). As a results, Americans can be excused for not being interested in the world outside America/the Americas.
It's not that we don't know that there's a world outside the US: it's just that we're happy to leave that world to their people, and hope they leave us alone in return. However, the Europeans - after having their butts handed to them by the people they colonized and now in their own countries by Muslims - have yet to get that memo.
Except that by now, American English is pretty much recognized as a language distinct from British English. Which one would see from Rosetta Stone, or from the fact that when you select a language from phone settings, American English and British English are 2 separate choices.
I'm sure the Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders would have liked their entries as well
I wonder how Millennials don't get accused of being Nazis as well. Have you seen their dance?
Free market... you mean like internal controls that mean that a large percentage of the population are illegal migrants inside their own borders.
People go to the cities seeking employment, but then end up losing all those workers paradise protections like free education and health care because they weren't allowed to do so by the government. China has far less of an free market than the US... but also the US itself is far from a free market with 50 states of incompatible regulations that favor local business communities over the ability of people to buy and sell goods and services across state lines.
China on the other hand has a complete command and control economy where you can't even get a job or move around without government imposed penalties.
The fact that there is a large portion of the economy that exists as a sort of gray market doesn't diminish nature of the command and control economic system, it just means the system is partially ineffective.
They also put up a ton of Confederate statutes!
Tear them down!
Negative. You're talking out your ass, you have no idea what you're saying. " And state companies are nigh indistinguishable from US-style monopolies." What does that even mean? They are owned directly by the government. When government owns big companies, that's not capitalism. Minimum wage is not meaningful? WTF is this crap? Nobody works for minimum wage, not even convenience store clerks. Violated left and right? No fucking way, people won't work for less than about 3000 yuan a month right now and it's just getting higher all the time. Beijing isn't the factory capital, it's the political capital and anything that happens there is by definition atypical.
"Actually, pretty much all regulations are as lax as you want them to be for a small sum." That is just wrong, wrong, wrong, a thousand times wrong. Anyone who pays a bribe is a fool.
You're talking out your ass and have no idea what you're saying. You just have a conclusion you wish to reach - MUH CAPITALISM - and you discard all logic and invent shit until you get there. China's changing, bigtime. It's not 2008 any more, which is where your ideas seem to date from.
How did this blatant straw man attack get modded up?!
What? Pointing out that righties enjoy big government? Of course, only when it is against _them_ (black people, atheists, muslims, immigrants). It's always been true.
If you put most 'right wingers' into the reality they think they're advocating, they'd be horrified; they're playing right into the hands of Dominionists. Go look up that word for a description of the kind of world they want. Be sure your stomach is empty first though.
What? Pointing out that righties enjoy big government? Of course, only when it is against _them_ (black people, atheists, muslims, immigrants). It's always been true.
Which "righties" are you talking about?
As far as I can tell American conservatives have always been in favor of limited government.
> It is so capitalist that Ayn Rand would hide under her bed after seeing it. And state companies are nigh indistinguishable from US-style monopolies.
China is so capitalist, it has state run companies? Wait, what!?
Do you share these posts with your therapist?
That would be an interesting conversation.
Please don't make statements about "most [anything]" without linking to statistical survey evidence to support your statements.
If nothing else, that would clarify what you mean by your descriptive term, which is seldom self-evident.
The whole internet would be a more peaceful place if we could all agree to follow that simple rule.
Please don't make statements about "most [anything]" without linking to statistical survey evidence to support your statements.
It's both hilarious and telling that you make this demand of me even though everything I stated can be found in the Wikipedia article under Conservationism in the United States, the precepts of which are broadly acknowledged without "statistical survey evidence". Yet you completely ignore the GP who made absurd claims about how "right-wingers" (note the lack of qualifiers, which implies all right wingers) would somehow find Totalitarian/Communist China some sort of utopia, a completely absurd and indefensible claim. Of the major tech corporations doing business there like Google, Apple, and Microsoft, you can't exactly classify their CEOs as "right-wingers".
I'm even willing to back-pedal a bit from my claim about "most anything", because you're technically correct, which is the best type of "correct" for pedantic arguments. So instead, I'll simply state that these are general principles espoused by the Conservative political movement in US politics, which is an indisputable fact. Whether that is represented by "right-wingers" as indicated in the GP's post, I'll leave open to debate, but that's a pretty common correlation to make.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Righties in the US always _say_ that they are in favor of limited government. Yet when they get the power they immediately use it to expand government's power. Pretty much every time, under different guises: "tough on crime", "uphold morality", "free enterprise", etc.
With the new internet social reputation system they are currently deploying as well, it's like klout became a government service.
Which means no IPO for Klout. Which I can live with...
Agreed. So spank the "conservatives" when they expand government power.
And we should always, consistently, vote to decrease government power in every election.